United States or Equatorial Guinea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She preferred to entertain her friends in the country than to live in town. She knew little of what gossip might run the streets of London; and since Luttrell was, as yet, like Sir Chichester, in that he was not a public character, there had been no wide-run gossip about Stella Croyle or himself which Millicent Splay was likely to meet.
Croyle could hardly hope to go without some rumour of her history coming afterwards to the ears of that family; and the family would hold her presence as a reproach against Millie Splay. Stella had herself proposed her plan to Millie, and she noted the relief with which it was received. "You will be careful not to mention it to a soul, Jenny," Stella insisted.
"I should have thrown myself out of the carriage and saved myself oh, so much sorrow afterwards," Stella Croyle answered in so simple and natural a voice that Joan could not disbelieve her. Joan clasped her hands before her eyes and then gazed again at Stella sitting in front of her, with pity and wonder.
He knew Robert Croyle and the sisters. He guessed what might happen to me. Perhaps he knew that it was going to happen." So, when Stella, having pulled down her veil that none might see her face, was stumbling along the platform in search of an empty carriage, a hand was very gently laid upon her and Harry Luttrell was at her side.
They had all been engaged, Hardiman and the rest of them, in keeping Harry Luttrell away from her: in defending him, whether he wished it or not, from the wiles of the enchantress. Stella Croyle was quick enough in the up-take where her wounded heart was not concerned, but she was never very clear in any judgment which affected Harry Luttrell.
Hillyard broke into a laugh. "I don't know," he answered. He was silent for a little while, and the comfort of the room, the quiet of the night, the pleasant sympathy of Stella Croyle, all wrought upon him. "I don't know," he repeated slowly. "I am waiting. But out of my queer life something more has got to come something more and something different.
Stella Croyle quoted the verses gaily, and Hillyard, lost in the anticipation of his journey, never noticed that the gaiety rang false. "And where are you going?" she asked. "To the Sudan." It seemed that Stella expected just that answer and no other.
"Well, since you haven't got any with you, I must go," said Joan, bursting suddenly into Stella's monologue. But she had caught a name spoken just before Stella stopped in her perplexity at Joan's outbreak. "Harry Luttrell!" Joan repeated. What in the world had Stella Croyle got to say to her about Harry Luttrell?
Hillyard looked quickly round the hall, as a qualm of pity for Stella Croyle seized him. But he could not see her. "Thank Heaven she has already gone up to dress," he said to himself. A marriage between Joan Whitworth and the Harry Luttrell of to-day, the man freed now from the great obsession of his life and trained now to the traditional paths, was a fitting thing, a thing to be welcomed.
She leaned forward and pressed the electric bell upon the tablecloth beside her. That small trivial action brought its relief, lightened the vague cloud of misgiving which since Luttrell had spoken, had settled upon all. "You rang, my lady," said Harper in the doorway. "Yes, Harper. We were making some plans for a picnic to-day and we should like to know if Mrs. Croyle will join us.
Word Of The Day